Former Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, has called on the Federal Government to decentralise the national grid in order to address the frequent collapse of the national grid and improve electricity supply in Nigeria.
Nnaji, who is the Chairman of Geometric Power Limited, stated this on Thursday, during the Second Distinguish Guest Lecture of Dominican University, Ibadan.
The lecture was entitled “Let there be Light: Solving Nigeria’s Electricity Puzzle for Sustainability’.
The former minister said that the national grid should be made into smaller chops for regional supply of electricity.
“Each one must be autonomous for better control and invested in by different groups and not one national grid, although there will still be national control that aggregates power and gets power supply from one end of the country to another.
“With this, each grid will be able to control itself and there will not be system collapse as we always have it now,” he said.
Nnaji said that operating the national grid from the centre could limit the ability of the country to address the problem of power supply.
According to him, gas supply and transmission infrastructure challenges are also hindering adequate supply of electricity in Nigeria.
The former minister said that government was doing its best, but needed to do more in order to have adequate supply of electricity in the country.
He said that there was prospect in power investment in Nigeria, if the country rigorously followed the power roadmap.
Earlier, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Anthony Adewale, said that the annual lecture was to remember the contributions of some people to the institution.
